Sir Julius Vogel, KCMG (24 February 1835 – 12 March 1899) was the eighthPremier of New Zealand. His administration is best remembered for the issuing of bonds to fund railway construction and other public works. He remains the only practising Jewish prime minister of New Zealand. Historian Warwick R. Armstrong assesses Vogel's strengths and weaknesses:

Vogel's politics were like his nature, imaginative – and occasionally brilliant – but reckless and speculative. He was an excellent policymaker but he needed a strong leader to restrain him....Yet Vogel had vision. He saw New Zealand as a potential 'Britain of the South Seas', strong both in agriculture and in industry, and inhabited by a large and flourishing population.[2]

Vogel first became involved in politics in 1862, winning election to the provincial council of Otago.[3] Four years later became the head of the provincial government, a post which he held until 1869.[3]

In 1863 he was elected a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, and on retiring from the provincial government in 1869 he joined the William Fox ministry as colonial treasurer,[3] afterward becoming successively postmaster-general, commissioner of customs, and telegraph commissioner. The Fox ministry having been forced to resign, Vogel carried a vote of no confidence in their successors, and in October 1872, returned to power as leader in the Lower House, colonial treasurer and postmaster-general. He represented several electorates throughout the colony: Dunedin and Suburbs North 1863–1866, Goldfields in Otago 1866–1870, Auckland East 1871–1875, Wanganui 1876 (resigned) and Christchurch North 1884–1889 (resigned).

Vogel was premier from 1873 to 1875 and again in 1876. From 1876 to 1881, he was agent-general for New Zealand in London, and, in 1884, he was again a member of the government of the colony. During his political career, Vogel worked generally successfully for reconciliation with the Māori people. In 1887, he introduced the first women's suffrage Bill to Parliament, but suffrage was not granted until 1893. He was knighted in 1875. He finally gave up colonial office in 1887, from which date he lived in England.

Vogel is best remembered for is his "Great Public Works" scheme of the 1870s. Before 1870, New Zealand was a country largely dominated by provincial interests and pork-barrel politics. After Vogel, as colonial treasurer, proposed borrowing the massive sum of 10 million pounds, New Zealand developed significant infrastructure of roads, railways and communication, all administered by central government. This ultimately led to the end of provincial government in 1876.

Vogel is also noteworthy as one of the few practising Jewish prime ministers outside Israel. Since Vogel, two other New Zealanders of Jewish descent have held the premiership: Francis Bell, an Anglican who briefly became prime minister in May 1925; and John Key, New Zealand's current prime minister, who took office in 2008 and who is not religious even if he attended synagogue as a child on occasion.[7]Benjamin Disraeli, who was also of Jewish descent, but he too was an Anglican, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom contemporary to Vogel's premiership. Mikhail Fradkov, also Jewish, was Prime Minister of Russia.